Deposit return scheme (recycling)

A lot of single stock cans and plastic bottles appearing in NI. Multipacks wont be far behind Id say.

Just the same as the below. I wonder if this attitude is going to be more prevalent. The machines don't fooking work! I tried multiple times

My local Centra has installed a machine. This morning the bin outside the store was absolutely wedged, to the point of overflowing and then some morons decided to just leave their rubbish on top of it. I've never seen it like this, so will put it down to the Return machine not working properly and people using the bin more than often. On the back of this green policy there is now excess rubbish floating around the streets because the public bins are overflowing.

At a Lidl the other day I saw the frustrated manager getting called over several times to fix the Return machine which wasn't processing refunds for frustrated customers.

This system is crap. Pure crap. What was wrong with the green bins we used up until now?

Same here.... bought a bale of their 330 ml waters x 24 bottles. They they only water bottles in the house - and on returning same 4-5 of teh bale wont scan. So had to give up. Not fair really.....

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i had a strange deposit return/RVM related experience today involving the gardai and even the loss of a sale for a business thanks to this DRS scheme. As juicy as i'd like to make this story for everyone reading, i'm not really sure where to begin or how to word it. Other than saying 2 gardai on their lunch break helped me put a bunch of bottles into an RVM and said its good to see people out recycling and talking random stuff about it. During the convo i told them they should go and arrest the re-turn CEO for theft, robbery and extortion or blackmail due to forcing this deposit tax on the public. One just laughed while the other said "we don't deal with stuff like that". One of them took a picture of me holding up a bottle at the machine while the other is helping dig through my bag (picture may appear on the gardai social media in the next coming days so look out! i think one of them said it was for twitter or facebook or something).

Also separate story but happened much later in the day, i went into a nearby news agents asking to buy a bottle of flavored water (some fruit flavor) and the cashier told me it costs €2.75. i put it back and told the cashier i'll be back later to buy it. i went around the corner to cash in one of my deposit return vouchers for €2.80, i came back to the news agents after cashing it in so i could buy it as i did'nt have money on me previously. There was a different cashier now serving, when i brought the bottle up to pay and they scanned it they asked for €3 and i had mentioned what the previous cashier said, being €2.75. The new cashier said it's €3 including the deposit!

Needless to say as i only had 2.80 they lost the sale, but not before i chanced my luck asking if he'd just take the €2.80 lol. unfortunately not. This is one instance and an example where this new inconvenient deposit return scheme actually caused a shop to lose out on a sale. All Thanks to this 25 cent deposit!

Also i thought of an idea the DRS scheme should do. They should have a prizes for xnumber of recycling redeems. Like if someone reaches 100 recycled units within half a year, or 1000 overall total returns, they should be awarded with some sort of special card to show retailers when buying drinks so that they are exempt from paying a deposit on them. Would be hilarious and also a nice thing to see in the scheme, a nice incentive to get people recycling. Also i'm not 100% sure on this but i believe the gardai are also exempt from paying deposits on re-turn containers. I still need to find out more on this, and how true the claim actually is. I've heard it from 3 people already so far, but need something more solid than just words from the mouth.

Ive heard it suggested on the radio that "enterprising" young people will be going around to their elderly neighbours offering to take away their empties for them so they can get the returned deposit.

I grew up in the 80s in rural Ireland. If the DRS scheme had come in then, I can see myself going down the road and offering such a "service". Lets say the deposit would have been 5 pence. If I collected 100 cans or bottles, and they all were accepted, that would have been £5, or 5 weeks worth of pocket money. That would have been worth my while when there was literally nothing else to do in my locality, in a world with 2 TV channels and no internet.

In the modern world where everyone has internet, youtube, netflix, tiktok, how much of a top-up to their pocket money would it be worth kids times now?

Used it for the first time yesterday, genuinely perplexed by all the whining in here about it.

It took less than 5 minutes in all, I had roughly 30 empty bottles to be returned from various shops.

Some bottles took at while to scan properly, but all were processed alright in the end.

Got my money and went on my merry way, spent longer at the self-checkouts at Dunnes trying to get it to scan my shopping. I guess the problem here is many older folk feel intimidated by new technology.

So I think the key is to find a store that works for you if your lucky enough to have the choice.

Only used the machines twice so far.

First go was Tesco, a disaster. Half the bottles rejected( even though I was charged at start of Feb but no return label at that stage, I knew that Miwaidi bottle would return to haunt me!) then had to walk all the way back to my car to put them back in to bring home.

So last night I went to local Aldi and much better. First of all its not in shop but in car park so you can park right beside it, now one orange juice bottle took 3 goes but got there in the end. It was grand and if any didn't work I was right beside the car.

However I don't go to either of these stores that often and sometimes walk so I'll have to drive the days I bring the bottles🤷‍♀️.

I'll never bring them for my main shop because that's in a shopping centre and I'm not dragging a bag of cans/ bottles around with me while I go to chemist, look in clothes shop etc before getting my groceries!

At the end of day its a whole load of hassle when I was already recycling everything anyway.

Ah here.

When it's working ok and you have allowed for the inconvenience and extra time involved it is fine.

However people posting here have had issues with machines not working, incorrect charging of deposits etc.

We are just under 2 months into the scheme and as time passes hopefully the problems will be sorted.

Or things might improve.

It's hard to see them backing down without a concerted campaign against the system.

A tax would just make the drinks more expensive and wouldn't improve the return rate.

Yes the scheme only works if people consume more, or even if they just keep consuming as much as they already. It's our buying of these goods that are being taxed with the deposit, so in theory if we all did Reduce and Re-use, the scheme would get nowhere. But if we continue to consume then they (the scheme) wins either way (due to deposits gained if we don't give them the recycleables) (due to recycleables gained and percentage stats if we do give them the recycleables, and also the money gained from them selling those recycleables).

For those that wish to protest against the scheme but still continue to purchase the products, some can go north where there is no deposit, or if buying the product in ireland but having to choose between the lesser of 2 evils one can return all the deposit containers so that there is severely less money gained by re-turn than if they were to keep the deposits (less than 2 cent per can, and virtually nothing they get for plastic bottles, but in keeping our deposits they get 15 cent per can via deposit instead, and 15-25cent per bottle depending on size). Or one can simply do the routue of not going through the bother of any of all that and continue to use their green bin at home. Worst case scenario (legally) is putting them in the black bin, but atleast its still being responsible. Remember folks, how you choose to dispose of your waste is your own business and your own personal choice, aslong as its legal its yours to do with however you see fit. And also keep in mind that recycling is a voluntary activity, they are lucky people are even recycling in the first place! they're trying to bully people into recycling with this scheme through financial coercion/ransom via deposit tax.

Their mismanagement of our recycleables and negligence should not result in us, the public being stock having to foot the bill to meet EU target goals. if anything THEY should be taxed or fined. We don't really have much choice in all of this being forced upon us, so i guess its more important to make what we think is the best possible choice for ourselves and what works for us. A Choice that's yours to make, and don't let anyone take that away from you or guilt you either way. Alot of time the choices in this scheme is having to choose between the lesser of two evils, or really hard choices overall. And also some people don't even have the privileged of making a choice either which is quite unfair.

I heard an off license owner on the radio the other day and he said it's been a nightmare.

That loo laa of a Green Minister for Circular Things thought it was a good idea. That's why. And in doing so has pissed off a good proportion of the population who were quietly going about their recycling and already paying for it.

Some numpty is that lad. And don't give us the 'EU made us do it' crap. This is Green Party policy, part of their manifesto agreed on entry to government. They need to own it and either get rid of it or better integrate it with the system we've all been using for years.

a lot of people have a notion that their tap water isn't fit for consumption